Description of Greece

This disaster befell Scotussa when Phrasicleides was archon at Athens[*](371 B.C.), in the hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii was victor for the second time, and in the second year of this Olympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while, for later they too were forced by their destitution to leave the city, when Heaven brought a second calamity in the war with Macedonia.

Others have won glorious victories in the pancratium, but Pulydamas, besides his prizes for the pancratium, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs through the land of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes, and mauled the camels carrying his supplies.

These lions often roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on Mount Olympus Pulydamas slew a lion, a huge and powerful beast, without the help of any weapon. To this exploit he was impelled by an ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend says, overthrew the lion at Nemea.

In addition to this, Pulydamas is remembered for another wonderful performance. He went among a herd of cattle and seized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hind feet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull's leaps and struggles, until at last it put forth all its strength and escaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Pulydamas. It is also said of him that he stopped a charioteer who was driving his chariot onwards at a great speed. Seizing with one hand the back of the chariot he kept a tight hold on both horses and driver.

Dareius, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian common people put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Pulydamas, sent messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at Susa. There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals to fight him—one against three— and killed them. Of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription.

But after all, the prophecy of Homer[*](Hom. Il. 6.407) respecting those who glory in their strength was to be fulfilled also in the case of Pulydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his own might. For Pulydamas entered a cave with the rest of his boon companions. It was summer-time, and, as ill-luck would have it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was obvious that it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out much longer.

Realizing the disaster that was coming, the others turned and ran away; but Pulydamas resolved to remain, holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent the falling in of the cave and would not be crushed by the mountain. Here Pulydamas met his end.

Beside the statue of Pulydamas at Olympia stand two Arcadians and one Attic athlete. The statue of the Mantinean, Protolaus the son of Dialces, who won the boxing-match for boys, was made by Pythagoras of Rhegium; that of Narycidas, son of Damaretus, a wrestler from Phigalia, was made by Daedalus of Sicyon; that of the Athenian Callias, a pancratiast, is by the Athenian painter Micon. Nicodamus the Maenalian made the statue of the Maenalian pancratiast Androsthenes, the son of Lochaeus, who won two victories among the men.

By these is set up a statue of Eucles, son of Callianax, a native of Rhodes and of the family of the Diagoridae. For he was the son of the daughter of Diagoras, and won an Olympic victory in the boxing-match for men. His statue is by Naucydes. Polycleitus of Argos, not the artist who made the image of Hera, but a pupil of Naucydes, made the statue of a boy wrestler, Agenor of Thebes. The statue was dedicated by the Phocian Commonwealth, for Theopompus, the father of Agenor, was a state friend[*](Proxenos: that is, he was a Theban who had under his care the interests of Phocians in Thebes.) of their nation.

Nicodamus, the sculptor from Maenalus, made the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas of Maenalus. There stands also the statue of the Elean boy Lastratidas, who won the crown for wrestling. He won a victory at Nemea also among the boys, and another among the beardless striplings. Paraballon, the father of Lastratidas, was first in the double foot-race, and he left to those coming after an object of ambition, by writing up in the gymnasium at Olympia the names of those who won Olympic victories.

So much for these. But it would not be right for me to pass over the boxer Euthymus, his victories and his other glories. Euthymus was by birth one of the Italian Locrians, who dwell in the region near the headland called the West Point, and he was called son of Astycles. Local legend, however, makes him the son, not of this man, but of the river Caecinus, which divides Locris from the land of Rhegium and produces the marvel of the grasshoppers. For the grasshoppers within Locris as far as the Caecinus sing just like others, but across the Caecinus in the territory of Rhegium they do not utter a sound.

This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymus, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival[*](484 B.C.), was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pancratium at the same Festival, overcame Euthymus at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pancratium, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymus.